Black Lodge Records
Review by Tatianny Ruiz
ELEINE, the beautiful Swedish jewel of Landskrona, is about to deliver another treasure to the reign of symphonic metal. The “All Shall Burn” EP is on the brink of release on November 22nd through Black Lodge Records but we are going to kill your curiosity here by delivering some of the dense, hypnotic new effort of this quasi-theatrical play ELEINE has become.
The beautiful vocalist Madeleine‘s band and the brilliant musicians that accompany her have been on our radar since 2011 and since then the band have released a few singles, two full-length and finally now the “All Shall Burn” EP and it wouldn’t be without reason that this band is in the public eye, Eleine has a mesmerizing beauty on its own as a band, delivering performances as fascinating as its composure as musicians, another point is the close and open contact with the audience, I always say “a musician should go where your audience is” and Eleine does just that, and finally for the distinctive and exotic sound that diverts the symphonic metal parameters.
The main difference about ELEINE and especially about this EP is that they have the potential to succumb to the sweet and genial melodies of the symphony to the obscurity and touching vastness of the paradigms of life, death and religion, advancing instigatingly for human reasons and adversity. Of course I need not mention how easy it is to reach the emotional of the listener and to dance without conflict with other metal genres without making it too far away.
Now that we’ve been through a lot of details about this band it’s time to talk about the content of “All Shall Burn“. With cover art that could easily deceive a black or death metal connoisseur, Eleine delved into the obscurity of art as did the first track “Enemies” with its soothing soft-vocal moments to the vigor of its nontraditional guitars and harsh melodies in the style as we knew it before. ELEINE has opened a big gap in style and surprisingly it works really well.
“All Shall Burn” is another breakthrough moment in this new work, introducing strong moments with cohesive instrumentals where Rikard and Ludwig just shine on their guitar cutting lines, but nothing compared to “Mein Herz Brennt“, here is one of the most impressive moments for me in this EP.
“Enemies” is a track boosting the album easily but I felt in many moments like telling Madeleine “raise this vocal, raise this vocal”, for some reason I felt some tone above would have come out better but nothing like finding this lady incorporating the demons into “Mein Herz Brennt“, it is truly a master play and sounds so angry and tearing that it will easily catch the listener’s breath while the violins provide a magnificent background.
The EP will also deliver “Hell Moon (We Shall Never Die)” and “All Shall Burn (symphonic version)” in pure symphonic state, almost blackened by the new colors this fulminant band offers. I never imagined putting together denominations between darkness and light so well on a symphonic metal band but this is exactly what ELEINE does. A frenzy of traditionalism, a journey of discovery, this is ELEINE paving the way for more times of alchemy and genius.
Rating – 90/100
Tracklist:
- Enemies
- All Shall Burn
- Mein Herz Brennt
- Hell Moon (We Shall Never Die) (symphonic version)
- All Shall Burn (symphonic version)
Line Up:
- Madeleine “Eleine” Liljestam – Vocals
- Rikard Ekberg – Guitars
- Ludwig Dante – Guitars
- Jesper Sunnhagen – Drums
- Anton Helgesson – Bass
Links:
Eleine Official Facebook page
Instagram
Spotify
Eleine Official Website
Black Lodge Records